


Somebody Else That Feels The Same Somewhere

by faroresson



Series: Thirty Three Songs to Say I Love You [5]
Category: Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Character Study, I will pepper in the fact that Yu is demi, Introspection, Kind of..., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29421435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faroresson/pseuds/faroresson
Summary: Yu wasn't a romantic. He wasn't much for sentiment at all, not because he doesn't want to be! Not at all! He just never... felt connected to it. His absent parents pushing him to get his future sorted wasn't helping matters. Moving to Inaba, where people approached him, where he was given room to work out what was going on in his head, where affection was given and taken freely, it allowed him to open himself to an aspect of himself he didn't know was allowed.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu
Series: Thirty Three Songs to Say I Love You [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124834
Kudos: 20





	Somebody Else That Feels The Same Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if this is disappointing, it's not where I originally intended but I can't rework it anymore than I already have... I do have to admit, writing Yu's thought process and him working out his process is so much fun! Probably because I project my own weird relationship with feeling/processing emotions onto him
> 
> And yeah, Yu's homoromantic demisexual in all my works, because why not

Whoever said you should never date a friend was both a bitch and a bootlicker. Where else was he going to find somebody who truly cared about him because of and not in spite of his virtues and vices? Where else would he find somebody that both looked at him like he hung the stars even after watching him eat expired yogurt for supper. And whoever said romance dies once the domesticity sets in? A fool in man’s shoes. If you don’t fall more in love with your partner as they stare aggressively at two different brands of crackers deciding exactly which one to buy, you aren’t living.

Now, Yu wouldn’t call himself a romantic in any sense of the word. But he had some opinions that he figured were best applied to himself. He wanted friends, first and foremost, and then he wanted one of those friends and him to eventually have their “Movie Moment” he’ll call it. He had watched people on TV supposedly fall in love all the time, read about it too, there wasn’t much else to do in his painfully empty home growing up. Something always seemed off in the books and shows, though. Eventually there were enough common tropes that Yu decided to make a list, it’d be something to dwell on in his spare time at least.

He scribbled it down in a pocket journal he had laying around, he had just turned sixteen and was starting his first year in high school. The notebook was always in the inside pocket of his book bag, just in case at school he managed to make a real friend or two and he needed to look out for the signs. Yu wasn’t all that excited about high school, the Komae uniform was suffocating in ways he didn’t quite know how to explain, and he didn’t have any friends going in with him from middle school. Then there was the added pressure of keeping his grades up while essentially raising himself, his parents had been up and leaving for weeks or even months at a time his whole life and they didn’t plan to stop now. 

His parents… There was another reason Yu bothered to even keep the little journal with the list of Movie Moment Signs. Any time his parents would call after the semester started in April they’d ask about his studies, the apartment, and if he had met anyone special -girls, typically. It was starting to grate on him, at least a little. Yu always managed to deflect with some comment about focussing on school, which, in part, is true. Then, the news that Mr and Mrs Narukami had to go stateside for a year for work spreads around, helped by Yu’s homeroom teacher announcing to his class that he’s moving out of the city to stay with family.

It was Yu’s last day of first year, only a couple weeks before he’s shipped off to the little town of Inaba. Instead of bidding farewell to the friends he doesn’t have, he’s staring intently at his pocket journal. He was looking at the words on the page, but he wasn’t really reading them. His mind was elsewhere, wandering from thought to thought of what the next year entails. Yu shakes his head to clear it, then he zeroes his focus back onto his notebook. He hopes he won’t have to worry about it when he moves, but at the same time, he kind of hopes he does.

_What Romantic Love Looks Like:_

  * _You start off on the wrong foot_


  * You know right away


  * There's a drive to protect one another


  * You have a hard time being apart


  * Everything with them feels So Much


  * Spending time together is awkward at first


  * Lots of staring


  * There's a desire for sex (?)



His list wasn't terribly long. And it wasn't in any particular order, either. According to the extensive collection of books Yu had read off his mother's side of the bookshelf, these were things he'd experience, and according to any movie targeted to his age group, it'd happen soon. The two big things that Yu felt apprehensive about though, was the last item on the list and that it's expected to be with a girl. Neither of those appeal to him, but, realistically, what would he know?

Yu hadn't had the time to think about anything aside from uprooting his life and essentially restarting from scratch in the time between March and April. One thing was made certain on his first day in Inaba, or okay, two things. The first being that the idea of living in a small town where everybody knew everybody was very very appealing. The second, after meeting Nanako, Yu decided that his original plan to get a basic college degree and slave away at an office for thirty years went out the window. He wanted to be a stay at home dad. That being said, once school started up, Yu's main thought was what was going to change in relation to him, and would he actually be forced to start crossing off thresholds from his pocket journal.

On the way to Yasogami, Yu had the privilege of watching some guy crash his bike into a telephone pole. Out of both politeness and his inability to approach people, he left the guy be. Maybe at a better time they could talk, after all, a crash like that is certainly an ice breaker. However, Yu could worry about it later, the first thing was making a good impression on his teachers and showing up on time.

Any and all plans to impress his teachers and worry about his lackluster social life died with his will to live as his homeroom teacher insulted him for daring to breathe in the direction of another student. Class ending early due to unforeseen circumstances didn't do much to improve Yu's mood, either. Things only started looking up when the girls he sits near, Chie and Yukiko, decided to walk home with him. Yu was actually kind of glad that they took the initiative, it'd be nice to make friends.

Talking with Chie and Yukiko led to the second time Yu saw the guy who crashed his bike, and now he seemed to be in equally dire straits with Chie kicking the shit out of him because of a DVD. The walk home was mostly uneventful, Chie talked about the things they passed by in town, asked Yu if he thought Yukiko was cute, he said she was but judging by the girls' reactions, it had come off differently than he meant. Then they found the police blockade, learned about the murder and went home.

Murders, weird voices and strange creepypasta-esque TV programs ultimately took the forefront of Yu's mind. And here he was, walking to school, not thinking about friends, or homework, and especially not that little pocket book in his bag. His peaceful trek to school was interrupted by the sound of something hard hitting trash cans. With a glance, it was easy to tell somebody needed help. This time, Yu couldn't let it be and pulled the guy out of the garbage.

"Wow, you really saved me there, I thought I was done for!" the two started walking towards Yasogami, "I'm Yosuke Hanamura, and I really owe you one, dude. Let me take you out to get our local delicacy. It's grilled steak! Nothing special but I do owe you one."

Yu can only nod along absently. Yosuke talks a lot, he notices, it's… nice.

Then the Midnight Channel shit started. In fact, that was how the first bullet point on Yu's list got its checkmark. He bought a pack of coloured gel pens and ticked off each item in a colour corresponding to a friend. Green for Chie, red for Yukiko and orange for Yosuke thus far. There were three neat checks in a row next to "There's a drive to protect one another"

As the Investigation Team dungeon crawled and recruited and grew closer, Yu kept close tabs on his own behaviour. He felt a little foolish, most people his age are at least in tune enough with themselves to not need to run a full diagnostic to know how they feel. But now, here he was, checking off the protection bullet with a pink pen. Rise was just rescued, and it was only now that he had the breathing room to look at his little notebook. It was funny how much being a leader to a team of friends overlapped with this… Maybe the different kinds of love weren't as separate as he was led to believe.

Chie only had one check, they wanted to protect each other. There was no awkwardness in their training, nothing odd or wrong about how they met at school. Being together and apart was as easy as breathing, and if anything, the most of any staring was from Chie towards Yukiko.

Yukiko had two checks. All of Yu's friends had a check in the protect category, it was the first thing to come up when a vow was forged. Her second was in the "Initial awkwardness" section. When they met she wasn't talkative, which was fine, the first few times they shared alone however were filled with oversharing and quick exits. So yeah, a little awkward, charming but awkward.

Kanji was the only one with "Started on the wrong foot" as one of his checks. That little purple check made Yu's gut twist with what he identified as regret. It seemed every friend had about two on average.

Rise got a check in the "Everything is so much" category thanks to her physical clinginess. Yu wasn't opposed, per se, but going from almost no human contact to having at least one person with a hand or something on him at all times was a jump his brain struggled to make.

Teddie's outlying sky blue checks were in the So Much and Staring categories. The former for a similar reason to Rise, his constant shouting in the TV world didn't help matters. The latter Yu marked because it was true, he found his attention drawn a lot to the 5 foot bipedal blue bear. Human Teddie, with his natural blond hair and big blue eyes threw Yu for a loop a lot.

Yosuke had the most checks out of everyone. That was how Yu came to the conclusion that he may have had a crush on his Partner. He ticked off the Protect, So Much, Time Away is Hard, categories, the only one that surprised Yu in its absence was the last category on the list.

Despite it being supposedly something to come with the rest of the package, Yu still didn't want to think about the last category.

Naoto joins the team and gets her own little navy blue checkmark with everyone else's. It's the only one she gets, which is fine. It’s not like he had much time for anything else. That little pocket journal with its little list was tucked away out of sight.

It took Yosuke having an emotional breakdown, a fistfight at the riverbed, Yu having a breakdown, the worst Christmas season possible and an impromptu kiss and cry after Valentine’s day for Yu to even bother with thinking about his movie moment. While there were many events in his life that played out like a film, nothing matched that second where the music stops and the lighting softens and the wind blows and angels sing and all that. When Yu opened the notebook to the list, he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face as he scratched out each thing on the list with his bright orange gel pen.

He didn’t need that movie moment, Yu thought as Yosuke dragged him around Okina. He didn’t need to know from first meeting, he never had to worry about uncomfortable first dates and misunderstandings. Yosuke had just pulled Yu into a photobooth, and pressed an affectionate kiss to his cheek. The swell in Yu’s chest as the camera clicked, the rush of adrenaline as they walked into the movie theatre with extra bags of candies stuffed in their pockets, and the fact that even after their relationship upgrade neither Yu nor Yosuke felt or seemed pressured into anything, that was how he knew. The little things that added up.

Yu had fallen in love with his best friend. Their deep, trusting, two-way friendship is what made that love so strong. Yu was dating his best friend.

And, amazingly enough, Yu wanted to marry him.


End file.
